Mirjami Ikonen

I started at the beginning of 2025 as a Senior Lecturer in Pedagogical Development at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies. As a researcher and university lecturer at the Business School, I study leadership issues and trust development, breaches, and restoration in work communities and networks, particularly from a process ontological perspective. Processes of organizational behavior inspire me as interpretations of actors. In my studies, I use experimental, creative qualitative methods of data collection and analysis (e.g., method of empathy-based stories, compassion method, portraiture, and co-produced autoethnography). In pedagogy, I rely on inquiry learning with different collaborative learning methods (e.g., drama, escape room, LEGO blocks for improvisation). I received the University of Eastern Finland’s Excellent Teaching Practitioner Award in 2018, the Finnish Economists’ Teaching Award in 2019 for the development of online teaching, and the Student Association Optimi’s Good Teacher Award in 2023.